Excellence not Success
Waiting in the doctor’s office today, my oldest asked what I was reading. When I told her it was Guy Claxton’s What’s the Point of School?, she looked confused. “Mommy, I know what the point of school is. Why do you need to read a book on it? It’s to learn and be patient and to learn to be nice, and respectful and honest, intelligent, and kind. You go to school to learn to be part of a group. That’s the point of school.” (pauses) “Oh! And magic tricks. You can’t learn magic tricks if you don’t go to school.”
Magic tricks aside, she sees school as a place to learn and grow. For her, it’s a shaping environment that will help her in her head, her heart, and her community.
This view of school all too often gets lost in the desire to have the ‘best’ students, the ‘hardest’ workers, Ivy-league at the expense of Junior League. Even when we try to mitigate its less than desirable effects, school can too easily become a shaping place for the wrong reasons.
Successful students, measured by grades, grow up to be measured by their bank account; the higher the number the better. Shouldn’t it be about something more?
I want excellence for myself and my children. When I was a kid, my grandfather told me that he didn’t care if I was a toll-taker as long as I was the best one I could possibly be. Whatever you do, be excellent at it he told all of his grandchildren.
We have, unfortunately, traded in excellence in education for success. The former is Excellence not Success:
